In the US, Unemployment Rose Amid a Pandemic to Nearly 15 Percent

Since the beginning of March, the United States has registered 33 million new unemployed. A more catastrophic situation with employment was in this country only during the Great Depression.

In the United States, unemployment rose in April amid a coronavirus pandemic to 14.7 percent. This is the highest figure ever recorded since the end of World War II, the White House said on Friday, May 8. Prior to the crisis in February, unemployment in the United States was only 3.5 percent, in March it rose to 4.4 percent.

Since the beginning of March, over 33 million new unemployed have been registered in the United States. The data for April cover the situation on the labor market only until the middle of the month; therefore, the current indicators do not seem to reflect the true scale of the crisis in the employment sector in this country.

The more catastrophic situation in the US labor market was only during the Great Depression of the 1920s and 30s, when unemployment was about 25 percent.